


Sebastian is invincible.

by mitzvah (Melting)



Series: (my black butler interpretation) [2]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Canon-typical master/slave dynamics, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It's really only shippy if you squint, M/M, ciel asking questions about demons, somebody needs to buy Sebastian a copy of "go the fuck to sleep"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melting/pseuds/mitzvah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Sebastian,” he asks the demon, “do you have a conscience?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Young master,” Sebastian says, “idle discourse with a lowly servant, such as myself, is hardly the best use of your time, this evening. It is already far later than your usual bedtime, and you need your rest.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ciel again breathes in the steam and tries to maintain his patience.  Sebastian is just trying to provoke him.  Then, quietly, Ciel replies, “Don’t be so evasive.  I thought we’d moved past that.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The butler’s smile falters, and his eyes settle on Ciel.  “Ah, so it’s that sort of night.”</em>
</p><p>Ciel wonders how much of Sebastian is more-or-less human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sebastian is invincible.

Sebastian is invincible. 

Usually, in battle, Sebastian doesn’t even allow his opponents to land a hit.  He evades, with inhuman speed and dexterity, every attack.  When he does receive a blow – and only in the rarest of circumstances – he barely notices.  He acts as if he doesn’t experience pain.  Spits out the bullets and hurls them back at his opponents while _grinning._

Ciel has seen his butler shot, stabbed, dismembered… and always, Sebastian continues fighting, and goes on to win.  It’s as if his mortal form is an illusion.

Ciel resents him for it.  (Probably more than he ought to.)

It’s not that Ciel resents Sebastian for being _competent._   Sebastian is Ciel’s knight and shield; he ought to be competent.  But Ciel resents that, despite the… revelations of a few evenings past…

As much as Sebastian seemed so _real_ that evening (when Ciel held the man, and cried for something that the stupid demon didn’t even know he lacked), Sebastian is, in the next moment, completely unreal.  Invincible and immortal and non-physical.  Ethereal. 

Tonight, enemies of the Phantomhives have launched an ambush on the manor.  It’s really nothing out of the ordinary – just a feeble collection of armed men fighting in the name of whatever mob boss hired them.  While Ciel usually ignores these scuffles outside, which Sebastian keeps as quiet as possible so that the earl can sleep undisturbed… tonight (as he was unable to fall asleep and roused himself to seek out a book with which to pass the time) Ciel finds himself captivated by the scene outside the large window in the library.

He watches as eight men are cut down to seven, six, five, four… each bleeding out on the neatly manicured lawn, at the hands of a demon of hell.

Ciel presses his forehead against the cool glass of the window, sighing at the carnage. The blood is black in the night, the men dead before they can scream.  There are only three remaining alive, and even they are on the ground with grotesque injuries.  Sebastian is approaching them to finish them off before they make too much noise. 

From his vantage point, Ciel can see the terror in their faces, eyes dripping with tears. Or, maybe he can’t see it, from so far away.  Maybe he’s imagining it.

Then Ciel whispers, almost to himself, “There’s no need for them all to die, Sebastian.”

In the midst of battle, his butler straightens, like a dog’s ears upon hearing its master’s whistle.  The demon glances toward Ciel, three stories up in the library window, as if he hadn’t realized the earl was still awake.

Maintaining eye contact, Ciel continues in a gentle, chiding tone, “You’ve done enough.”

There are only three men remaining.  When they realize the butler is no longer attacking, they try to escape, as fast as they can manage with their injuries.

Ciel blinks, and the lawn is clean, the five corpses are gone, and Sebastian is in the library.  But Ciel can still see, in the glow of the moonlight, the silhouettes of the men near the edge of his property.  They are small, in the distance, vulnerable and clumsy, like newly hatched turtles crawling toward the sea.

“Young master,” Sebastian says from somewhere behind Ciel, his tone both inquisitive and detached, “have I done something wrong?”

Ciel likes that those are the words Sebastian chose.  _Have I done something wrong?_  Like a dog or a child that made a mistake, anticipating chastisement.  But the _tone_ with which Sebastian uttered the words, the demon’s obvious _indifference_ … it makes the statement itself paradoxical.  There are no consequences for Sebastian, should he make a mistake.  His query is only for his master’s benefit, so that, next time, Ciel will give more explicit instructions about how to approach these situations.

Resolving to ignore the question entirely, Ciel doesn’t turn around.  Instead, he tries to pick out the shrinking silhouettes nearing the edge of the forest.  Pressing the fingertips of one hand against the windowpane, he asks his butler, curiously, “Do you think they will survive? In this state?”

He can hear the butler’s shoes tap against the hardwood as he approaches the window. “It is possible,” he says, “but humans are very delicate creatures. Even if they live through the night and reach civilization, their injuries are quite severe.  It is unlikely they will receive adequate medical care, given their line of work, and, even if they do, there is no telling how the human spirit will be affected by such trauma.”

 _I am only your tool,_ Ciel imagines Sebastian is saying.  _Ultimately, these men have suffered by your hand._

Ciel shuts his eyes.  “Perhaps it would be more merciful to let them die.”

“Mercy? My, my…” The butler is smirking, “How very unlike you, my lord.  Do you forget that these men intended to kill you?”

“No, Sebastian.  The person who hired them wanted to kill me.  There is a difference.” 

“Is there?” asks the demon.

Ciel huffs, and turns from the window.  He is going to yell at the demon, but, catching garnet eyes and seeing Sebastian’s face… Ciel hesitates.

Sebastian’s physical form, which is more or less just a costume, had always seemed so preternaturally perfect.  Or maybe Ciel just never paid close enough attention to notice the imperfections.  The strands of hair that have feathered out of place. The texture of his youthful skin. The slight swell of the lapels of his suit as he breathes.  _Breathes._ Like any other living being.

More or less, just a costume.  More or less.

Turning his gaze to the floor, Ciel mutters, “Sebastian: call for an ambulance for those men.  When you’ve finished, come immediately to my room. And-” Ciel swallows against his dry throat, “bring tea.”

“Of course,” says Sebastian, before disappearing to take care of his assigned task.

Finally, Ciel is alone.  He exits the library and walks the hallways toward his bedchamber, his nightshirt brushing against his knees, the taste of his own mortality bitter in his mouth.  He is barefoot, leaving prints in the polish of the floor.

 _Sebastian is not human,_ he tells himself.  _It is just a clever disguise._

After all, the demon would never – could never – understand how compulsive was the human drive to preserve human life.  And isn’t that a central tenet of being human? If not for political or moral necessities, Ciel would never _choose_ to kill another human being. No sane person would, because the thing one fears most is one’s own demise, and to kill another is to bring upon oneself empathetic pangs of existential horror.  And the idea that Sebastian _would_ kill a human, only because it was the easiest method of incapacitating his opponents, gives Ciel pause.

_How much blood do I already have on my hands?  How many people have been killed by my demon, without my knowledge?_

_Is their blood on my hands, or Sebastian’s?  Who takes the moral plight? And even if the guilt is mine, Sebastian will eventually consume me.  He hasn’t the slightest clue…_

_He knows what sin is, but he doesn’t know what sin means.  He has no concept of guilt, nor regret, nor suffering._

Unsurprisingly, when Ciel reaches his bedroom, Sebastian has already brought the tea. “I have prepared an herbal tea, young master.  You have many appointments tomorrow, so it is best that, after you’ve finished, you try to sleep through the night.”

Sebastian’s gloves are clean.  His smile is close-mouthed, his eyes shut.  His every expression is shallow. _Shallow because it’s not real._

The porcelain teacup is a shock of hot against Ciel’s fingers, but it is a good heat, and the tea pours like confidence down Ciel’s throat.  He takes a deep breath, inhaling the steam.  “Sebastian,” he asks the demon, “do you have a conscience?”

“Young master,” Sebastian says, “idle discourse with a lowly servant, such as myself, is hardly the best use of your time, this evening. It is already far later than your usual bedtime, and you need your rest.”

Ciel again breathes in the steam and tries to maintain his patience.  Sebastian is just trying to provoke him.  Then, quietly, Ciel replies, “Don’t be so evasive.  I thought we’d moved past that.”

The butler’s smile falters, and his eyes settle on Ciel.  “Ah, so it’s that sort of night.”

“What sort of night?”

“The sort of night that my young master likes to interrogate his loyal butler.”  The demon’s jaw sets, but his tone is still polite.

“I trust your loyalty, Sebastian.  I only ask questions out of curiosity.”

“Curiosity can be assuaged in the morning, my lord.”  When Ciel holds out the half-empty teacup, Sebastian receives it and returns it to the cart.

As Sebastian does this – gently, and at a human speed, so as not to injure the porcelain – Ciel quips, “Unfortunately _, demon_ , you don’t have a choice in the matter.” 

Ciel’s right eye begins to burn as he invokes – or, at least, threatens to invoke – the contract.  It seems that this happens more and more often these days.  Sebastian – immortal and ostensibly wiser - knows how to distract his master, how to maneuver the conversation to get out of doing anything he doesn’t want to do. With increasing frequency, Ciel has to level his orders _via the contract_ in order to make his demon cooperate.

 _What motivates him to be so difficult?_ Ciel ponders.  _Is it because the types of orders I give him have changed?_

“Do you feel pain?” he asks his demon, compulsively.

Sebastian heaves a sigh, rests his gloved fingers on the handle of the teacart.  He doesn’t answer.

Annoyed, Ciel asks further, “Why don’t you answer these sorts of questions, Sebastian?  Is there some sort of danger in telling me?”

“Yes,” replies the butler, “the danger is that my young master will not get enough sleep.”

“If that were the case, you’d answer my questions during daylight hours.  But you always… evade.”

The room is so dark, except for the glow from the lantern on the wall and the red of the demon’s eyes.  And Ciel keeps seeing those men, their horrified expressions as Ciel’s demon murdered them one by one. Ciel’s demon, who hates answering direct questions because, according to that conversation a few evenings past, he doesn’t want to expose a _vulnerability._

Certain he’s cracked the riddle, Ciel asks, all of a sudden and louder than before, “Sebastian, are you _afraid_ of me?”

The butler spins around from the teacart and looks Ciel square in the eye, shocked speechless.  Then… he begins to…

To laugh.

Not a loud, hysterical laugh, but an earnest chuckle that he can’t quite hold back behind the gloved hand he’s clapped over his mouth.

And to think… it’s a _demon,_ laughing. More or less.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Sebastian chokes out, trying to maintain his composure by avoiding eye contact with Ciel.  “It’s only that… it is so difficult to keep you _alive_ on a day-to-day basis… it would be absurd for me to feel _threatened_ by someone so especially frail.”

Chin jutting out indignantly, Ciel sighs, and allows Sebastian his moment of mirth.  As the butler calms, Ciel mutters, “While I concede my own physical weakness… I was wondering if you were afraid because I am still the one holding your leash.”

Humor turning sour, Sebastian straightens and rests his hands behind his back, retreating into propriety. “Young master, I must remind you: I am not a dog.”

“Aren’t you, though?” Ciel smirks, mischief settling pleasantly in his chest.

(The demon responds under his breath some nonsense about being “only one hell of a butler.”)

“Sebastian…” Oh, Ciel can’t help himself, “This is an order:” (the burn of his right eye is strong, and pleasurable,) “Woof.”

Eyes turning to the ceiling in exasperation, the butler asks, “Has the young master ever heard the proverb about playing with fire?”

“Do it.” Ciel commands, impatient, allowing the fire of the contract to burn even hotter. “Come, now.  I own you, don’t I?”

The demon’s eyes flash hellish.  Ciel smiles.

“…woof.”

“Good dog.”

Sebastian’s ire simmers under the surface, palpable and, for Ciel, quite exciting. Stiffly, the butler rests his hands on the teacart and begins to wheel it toward the door.  “I believe it is time for the young master to finally sleep.”

“Oh, no, Sebastian, I’m not finished yet.”

Turning on Ciel faster than the boy’s eyes can process, the demon snaps, “Whatever pleasure you get out of your servant’s _humiliation_ will hardly sustain you through tomorrow’s appointments. It is time to _rest.”_

Ciel watches him.  Calculates.  There is a very slight flush to the butler’s cheeks and nose, but the contradiction is the fangs exposed behind unblemished lips. Human, demon.

_But whether his physical form is more human or more devil, his anger and embarrassment is universal.  Such an emotional creature… it seems so contradictory that he be able to kill indiscriminately!_

Ciel wets his lips and stares at his butler contemplatively.

Then, earnestly, Ciel apologizes.  (As childish and stubborn as he may often act around his butler, he still has a vast lexicon of propriety and sincerity that he uses among his own class.  He knows how to apologize when the situation warrants it, and it isn’t hard for him to admit when he’s done wrong.  His own honor demands it.) So, quietly, “I’m sorry for teasing you, Sebastian.  I wanted to make a point, but not out of malice.  I don’t want to hurt you.”

Wordlessly, the butler stares. 

Ciel meets his eyes.  “I mean that,” he murmurs, trying to reassure.

The butler breaks eye contact, ducks his head.  “Propriety hardly calls for a noble to apologize to his staff.”

Ciel doesn’t say anything to that.

“And,” continues the demon, “if the young master believes a demon has any reason to fear a mere _child,_ he dangerously overestimates his own existential significance.”

“But there’s something you don’t want to tell me.”

“Young master, please.  It is past midnight.  At this rate, you won’t get enough rest and the staff will be forced to bear the brunt of your sour mood in the morning.”

Single-mindedly, Ciel stands and steps toward his butler, the floor cool under his toes.  “Perhaps not out of fear, but there’s something you’re hiding from me.”

Now, it is apparent Sebastian is grasping at straws. “Will you not permit your loyal servant even a fraction of privacy?” 

“You said so yourself: under the terms of the contract, I owe you nothing but my soul.  It would be foolish to offer anything else.”  Ignoring the prick of fear on his neck as he moves so close to the demon who he’d just seen kill five men, Ciel takes the butler’s left hand from the handle of the teacart and holds it as if inspecting, stroking the palm through the glove.  Sebastian knows better than to resist, but Ciel has never _done_ this before.  The boy knows he is putting the demon on edge.

He’s never… he’s never _done_ this before.  He’s never trusted the demon this much, he’s never so fully believed that his monster is tame.  In his peripheral vision, Ciel sees black feathers.

“I suppose,” whispers Ciel, “I could just shoot you.  And then order you to tell me whether it hurt.”

That proposition gets a reaction. This close, Ciel can see his demon flinch.  Feel it, too, in the all-too-human fingers and tendons he is subjecting to tactile investigation through the silk-soft glove.

And then Ciel flinches, too, when Sebastian speaks, low, “I believe you were saner when we first met, young master.”

“I made a contract with a demon; how sane could I have been?”

“At the very least, you made decisions rationally.  Now…” (Ciel can feel Sebastian’s breath as he speaks, and he knows that, if he looks up at the demon, the eyes will be that of a monster.  But he isn’t afraid.) “…one moment you are apologizing to your servant, and the next you are threatening to put a bullet through me.  I can’t say I understand what, if anything, motivates you.”

“Would it hurt?” Ciel asks, and now he’s holding Sebastian’s hand the way he held his mother’s, without the intention of ever letting go. “If I shot you?”

Moments pass as the butler wrestles with his reluctance, but small fingers press deliberately against the contract mark under the silk, and he relents. “Yes, young master. _Severely.”_

“Then how… how is it that, in battle…?”

“That is quite different.  When others try to physically harm this body, it is nothing.  However… if the contract-holder does the same, the result is exponentially more excruciating.  Tenfold the pain a normal human would experience.”

“And you kept that a secret from me.”

Ciel explores further the inside of the butler’s wrist, soft-hot skin and a thin tendon and – and – _dear God… his demon has a pulse._ Meanwhile, Sebastian explains, almost inaudibly, “Most demons will try to avoid any situation in which that particular clause of the contract would be relevant.  It is a matter of self-preservation. Not that there would be any permanent damage… but there is no one that would willingly invite torture upon themselves.”

“Isn’t it more dangerous to keep it a secret, though? In case the contract-holder accidentally…”

“One never hurts one’s servant accidentally.”

(The human warmth of Sebastian’s skin sparks in Ciel memories of youthful dependence and tactile possessiveness of his parents.)  “But… they might think you are invincible and treat your physical form as an outlet for stress relief. And they wouldn’t… wouldn’t do that, if they knew…”

A mirthless laugh escapes the demon.  “To a human, a contracted demon is nothing more than a physical manifestation of their own inevitable mortality.  Thus, if they knew it was within their power, they would torment the demon, out of fear and hatred.  It wouldn’t save their souls, but, nonetheless, they would try to avenge themselves.”

“That’s… that’s not fair.  If you fulfill your part of the contract, they have no grounds for demanding retribution.”

“By the time the contract is fulfilled, they have no _means_ of demanding retribution.  This is _during_ the contract period, before the demon has fulfilled its duty.”

“But they shouldn’t… but the demon hasn’t done anything wrong!  If the human consented to the contract, then that should be the end of it!” And Ciel is clutching at Sebastian’s hand, as if to… to protect? To convince? To comfort?

After a brief pause, the butler replies, emotionlessly, “I sincerely hope you continue to believe so, young master.  Else, I’ve damned myself.”

“But – I – I would never…!”

The butler removes his hand from the boy’s hold, and then unceremoniously lifts the child into the air and carries him to the bed.  “My lord, _please_ rest now.  It is far too late at night to work yourself up over something so trivial.”

“Sebastian! You - _you are not trivial!”_   Ciel tries to keep ahold of some scrap of the butler’s clothing to keep him still, to make him listen, but Sebastian is already across the room with the candle douter, moving to extinguish the lantern on the wall, so that only the candelabra remains lit.

“Please lie down, young master.”

Ciel moves backwards on the bed, pulls the covers over himself _he wants to cooperate.  He wants to make Sebastian’s task easy._ But he is also searching for something to say, anything to say, to continue the conversation, because he worries something has fundamentally changed.

Sebastian douses the lantern.

“S-Stay with me,” Ciel chokes out.  “Please.”

In the light from the candelabra, Ciel can faintly make out his butler’s face.  He had half-expected Sebastian to put on his usual guise of predatory intrigue at Ciel’s childish, vulnerable habits.  But Sebastian only looks at him – vacant.

“Until I fall asleep,” Ciel amends.

More or less human.  More or less, more or less, and those eyes almost glow red in the dark and Ciel is so, so tired.

“As you wish, young master.”

(Sebastian stays, but he remains all the way across the room, standing guard by the door.)

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you like this interpretation of Black Butler, and tell me what part of it appeals to you in particular! I'm sort of messing around in the sandbox with these stories - I have a lot of headcanons about the way the universe's mechanics should work, and when I write them in story format it sort of turns out like a battle of wits. I hope to write more soon.


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